Bison Swimming
Road Map

Starting Your Journey as a Bison:

The Bison Swim Club is focused on developing performance-focused athletes. Due to our small training environment, performance level and training habits (attendance, work ethic, etc.) are the top priority when deciding which swimmers to populate the limited training space with. Therefore, not every athlete will be invited to progress to the subsequent training group. When this occurs, the swimmer will typically either move on from the sport or if they wish to continue, the Bison Swim club can help facilitate a transfer to another local swim club with more space to accommodate a wider spectrum of athletes.

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The club has the following training groups which are categorized by age, skill level, performance level, and training habits:

Mini Bisons

• Ages 7-14

• Pre-competitive

• 1-3x per week

• 1-3 hours per week

• 10-week session

• 3 sessions per season (Fall, Winter, Spring)
   

The Mini Bison program is designed to introduce swimmers to competitive swimming skills such as freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly, starts, turns, streamlining, kicking, and floating. To qualify to take part in Mini Bisons, a skill assessment must be completed by one of the Bison swimming coaches. Mini Bisons operates in 10-week blocks, three times per year (Fall, Winter, and Spring). Swimmers can swim 1-3x per week. This program aims to find swimmers who love being in the water and are eager to compete in the sport; these swimmers will eventually be moved into our competitive program. Mini Bisons is an opportunity for swimmers to explore whether competitive swimming is a sport they would like to pursue on a more serious level.

Bison Racers

• Ages 7-15

• Competitive

• 1-3x per week

• 1-3 hours per week

• Full season i.e., Sept-June
   

Bison Racers is an introduction to competitive swimming. This training group runs concurrently with the Mini Bisons program making for a seamless transition from Mini Bisons to Bison Racers. This training group provides swimmers with the opportunity to try competitive swimming. Swimmers in the Bison Racers program will train 1-3x per week from Sept-June and will also compete in external swim meets against swimmers from other local clubs (typically held at the Pan Am Pool). Swimmers MUST compete in external swim meets to register for Bison Racers i.e., it is not an option to train with the group without racing. If a swimmer has aged out of Mini Bisons (i.e., older than 15) and is not interested in racing, we can recommend other swim fitness programs that are available at the U of M. If after training with Bison Racers, a swimmer has reached an adequate skill, performance, and training level (determined by the coaching staff) and is interested in pursuing swimming more seriously they will be invited to move up to the Youth group.

Youth

• Ages 8-13

• Competitive

• 5x per week

• 5 hours per week

• Additional strength training optional

• Full season i.e., Sept-June
   

The Youth training group is the first serious step toward pursuing competitive swimming. At this stage, participation in other sports (school sports for example) is supported and encouraged. Athletes in this training group are typically aiming towards competing at Junior Provincial Championships and Provincial Championships. If after training with the Youth group, a swimmer has reached an adequate skill, performance, and training level (determined by the coaching staff) and is interested in increasing their commitment level, they will be invited to move up to the Junior Development group.